I need to control myself. My levels of stress and anger at the world, at times, seem to be spiralling out of control. It seems that the smallest infractions (of others, of course) affect me in a big way and I am not sure how to reconcile it with my world view.
What is my world view? Well that I am not too sure about any more.
In the past I have tried to believe that people are good - that people are not selfish, or greedy, and that they are reasonable intelligent and aware of other people. More recently I have come to feel that most people are very self-centered, greedy, and completely unaware or perhaps just uncaring towards others. A complete 180 from the past.
Is it just me? Is there something that's happened in my life that's made me take on this view? Have people really become terrible overnight? I can't for the life of me figure it out.
Every day I see evidence that people are, at best, completely ignorant. I see evidence of greed, racism, pure hatred, self-interest and at the same time I also see less evidence of kindness, selflessness, charity and awareness of what is right, or good.
I think what I need to do is to start journalling what I see and building a case for either side - if anyone is reading this perhaps they can weigh in on what I've seen and written - let them judge it and tell me what I am doing to see things so negatively.
Wish me luck - I really hope that I can start to see the world more positively. I want to enjoy the world, and living amongst the inhabitants of it. I want to try to spread joy, not anger. I want to reming people of how good they can be and not remind them of the rules they've broken.
1 comment:
Hey, I think I can understand what you are writing about. Recently I've found myself completely disappointed in the behaviour of people around me and was so dumbfounded by it that my only response was pure anger. I lashed out in a way I never had before, raised my voiced repeatedly and laid out my feelings in no uncertain terms and with what I now see was complete finality. No going back now.
I'm still angry, but I remembered something I read to the effect that it's generally impossible to find the ideal place to live, so make every place you live an ideal within yourself. It sounds pithy, but there's truth in it.
Most of what we perceive is an internal construction, built up from limited information and sense data. Most of the world is hidden from us, and we have to fill in the blanks. So part of the greed and stupidity we see around us is _in_ us to start. We can't abstract ourselves as observers from the environment around us and to do so is a fundamental epistemological error. Our knowledge gets screwed up.
So instead of differentiating yourself, integrate yourself and your anger. It's a much more global operation! Don't try to suppress it, don't judge it as 'a bad thing,' just see it as part of the overall pattern of behaviour around you and how it works in the overall harmony of human relationships.
And stop thinking when you don't have to. Seriously, you have an over-active mind and you get tied up in knots sometimes. Life is a very simple process at its core. Get back to that simplicity. Take a media break and just spend some time sitting on the grass, watching and listening to nature.
Integrate!
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